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44 



THREE SERMONS 



PREACHED IN THE 



C^ 



it^i ^ImxHt^dht 41^1 



PHILADELPHIA. 



Sunday, April 1 6 th,Wednesday, April 19th,and Tliiirsday, June 1st, 



By RICHARD EDDY, Pastor, 



PHILADELPHIA : 

n. G. LEISENRING'S STEAM-POWER PRINTING HOUSE, 
Jaync'8 Building, Nos. 237 and 239 Dock Street. 

1865. 



And the Victory that day was tuuned into Mourning unto ai.i. thk 
People.— 1 Samuel, xix., 2. 

Uiitil within a little more than twonty-tbur hours what preparations 
had been made for a joyous keeping of this day and of to-morrow. 
How many had rejoiced in the assurance that the brightest Easter sun 
that ever shone upon the earth, would this day smile upon happy wor- 
shippers, and witness a beautiful and harmonious blending of political 
rejoicing and religious thanksgiving I Our hearts were full of gratitude 
and hope on the last Christian Sabbath. It was, opportunely and with 
singular felicity of appropriateness, Palm Sunday — the Sunday of 
victory, and all through the preceding week we had been filled with 
congratulations and rejoicings. Then we brought all our joy to the 
Christian temple, and felt that it had the approval and the benediction 
of God. Our cup of happiness was well nigh full. But on the open- 
ing of the busy week, yes, before we had closed our eyes in slumber on 
the Sabbath night, still more glorious tidings had come to us, and the 
joyous messages increased as each day brought us nearer to this day of 
blessed rest. 

How beautifully all material and religious influences seemed conjoined 
to make this day ever memorable for its joyous, instead of as now, alas ! 
its sad observance ! 

I had advertised that I would speak to you (as suggested by this 
Resurrection Morn,) on the New Life for Man, through the power of the 
revelation of immortal life by the liesurrection of Jesus Christ, and on 
the New Life for the Nation, planted as the richest shoot of Christian 
civilization, and now destined to a glorious career under Christian 
guidance, and the strong fidelity of the people to Christian principle. 

I had thought that we might thus honor God and profit our own 
hearts, by such an observance of Easter. How much there was to fur- 
nish analogy, illustration and suggestion, and to enable us to look with 
cheerful hope on the changing condition of our Country. 

I thought of the beautiful illustrations, the encouragement to con- 
fident trust, the incitements to patient and cheerful waiting, the every 
day increasing beauties, and the constant preparations for future 
harvests so beautifully visible in this joyous Spring-time How grandly 
do nature's types now shadow forth the realities of the Christian 



Dispensation, and seem in most genial keeping with our national hopes. 
Fruit trees loaded with pure white blossoms; forest trees that seemed 
but yesterday to be bending beneath their load of chilling snow, now 
unfurling their emerald leaves ; the daisy and the violet blossoming by 
the road side ; the fresh grass decking the earth that was but yesterday 
bare ; how all these sympathized or seemed to sympathize with our new 
and almost as sudden, though in reality quite as long preparing, national 
change. Oh ! what a long and dreary winter has our beloved Country 
passed through. Stripped of how many comforts, pinched by how 
many wants, agonized by how many chilling blasts of adversity, 
crushed by how many cold and heavy troubles, our hearts aching with 
their burdens. 

I thought, too, to have you feel a fresher and livelier interest in that 
great reglious event which makes this day so glorious. How appro- 
priate it was, that it should fall on this Spring-time of the year, — 
man's resurrection symbolized by nature, and realized by the rising of 
the Sun of Righteousness. What fitness there was, that our Anglo- 
Saxon fathers should redeem this day from its heathen observances — 
from at least its merely natural uses, and make it evermore a religious — 
a Christian festival. 

I thought, too, to have said some word that should make it be felt, 
that this day celebrates that event which more than any other gives 
assurance that the Christian Religioo rests not in imagination, — a 
merely beautiful, but, perhaps, also, a fictitious theory, but on an 
unmistakable, an undeniable fact. And that at no time have the 
American people had greater reason to satisfy themselves of the positive 
truthfulness, and the absolute authority of the Christian Religion, 
than is now pressing upon them. A professed Christian land, with the 
great task before it of reconstruction of the Government of so many of 
its parts; with a crushed and hitherto despised race to provide for; 
with thousands of unfortunates, and thousands of criminals to dispose 
of — to conciliate — to discipline, and to save from being utterly cast 
away ; what momentous issues these raise, what grave responsibilities 
they impose, what faithfulness and patience, what justice and mercy 
they demand. The Christian Religion alone can help us to solve the 
problem — to do that which is right, and just, and true. How important, 
then, to know that the Christian Religion has authority, that it pro- 
poses God's methods, that it advocates nothing impracticable, but 
everywhere and always holds forth the eternal truth. Let us but 
establish our hearts in this, and God will make us equal to our work. 



Let us seek adjustments, settlements, reconstructions, on any basis 
foreign to the Christian truth, and we have all our work to undo, and 
can find no rest, no peace, till we set our feet on this immovable rock. 
I hoped, too, to have set forth some recent indications of the new 
life on which the Nation is about to enter. How the downfall of the 
main army of Rebellion, and the notice consequent thereon, that there 
was to be no more calls for soldiers, had given all encouragement and 
hope for speedy peace ; how the words of President Lincoln, on recon- 
struction, plain-spoken, full of good sense, evincing so much goodness 
and greatness of heart, had won their way to all men's consciences, and 
seemed to unite us still more closely and more warmly in the conscious- 
ness of one citizenship, and oneness of just pride in our honest, able, 
noble-hearted, patriotic President. 

These thoughts I had revolved in my mind ; had hoped to have 
presented them somewhat fully to you this morning. 

Rising at an early hour yesterday, that I might have time to arrange 
and write out my theme, I heard the tidings of the assassination of our 
Chief Magistrate, which I am sure must have affected you as they 
affected me — absorbed all other thoughts, and banished all other themes. 
How sudden, how terrible the calamity ! What else could have so 
changed the current of human thought all over our land ! What else 
have stayed the rejoicings whose enthusiastic waves were uiounting up 
to a height never before known among the American people ! What 
else could have induced the people to lay aside the flowers with which 
they were intending to deck the pulpits of the land, and to put in 
their stead the symbols of deepest gloom ! What else could have 
made us feel as we enter our churches this long-looked-for morning, 
that we are come to the burial of our fondest love, rather than to bask 
in the sunlight of an immortal day. and mounting up on the wings of 
an all victorious faith to shout, "0, death, where is thy sting? 0, 
grave, where is thy victory?" 

Surely, " the victory of our day is turned into mourning unto all 
the people." 

And here, under the pressure of this common, this deeply oppressive 
grief, what can I say ? what can any man say this day ? I find myself 
continually repeating : " The Nation is bowed heavily with mourning. 
The man beloved, trusted, honored, and worthy of all trust, honor and 
aifection, is suddenly taken away, and we, like bewildered travelers, 
are bereft of our guide ; like orphaned children, we mourn the de- 
parture of our father !" 



6 

Surely this expresses the common sentiment ; it tells for the time 
being all that, humanly speaking, can be said. 

Was there ever since the death of the Saviour of the world, a more 
brutal, a more uncalled-for murder? Private ambition, or personal 
hate, had nerved the hearts and hands of men in other days, to the 
destruction of their ruler. Patriots risking all, and applauded by 
the world, had driven the dagger to the tyrant's heart. The profli- 
gate kings and princes of the past had fallen victims to the lust or 
envy of the men whom they had corrupted ; and many a people have 
breathed more freely, as through such "sudden taking ofl:'," a change 
of administration was provided for them. But no such contingencies, 
no such circumstances distract our thoughts from the awf ulness of this 
murder, or alleviate the gloom of this terrible calamity. 

A good man, a pure patriot, a man unselfishly devoted to the best 
interests of his Country ; a man who was carried by the voice of mil- 
lions to the highest point of earthly trust and honor ; who bore him- 
self meekly ; who never failed to favorably impress either friend or foe 
brought in personal contact with him ; who seldom, though staggering 
under a burden of difiicult duty, such as never was laid on any mortal 
man before, made a mistake in his policy, but came to be regarded 
more and more as the one truly wise man of the land, and to be loved 
and trusted by the common people with an aifection and reverence 
hardly second to that which a grateful Country cherishes towards its 
Founder and Father, Greorge Washington. 

And here, in the midst of a career so glorious, while standing on the 
height from which he could survey the promised future of a united 
and free people, just as the words of peace wore to drop from his lips, 
and the promises of still greater mercy were about to be made to the 
guilty, he is taken from his work and from his earthly reward. 

Strange infatuation of his enemies, that they did not sec that he 
was their best and truest friend, who with truly Christian virtue was 
meditating their good. 

Fatal blindness that struck so murderously against the two men of 
the Nation, who more than all others in poAver and influence, were 
subduing the vindictiveness which war creates, and leading the people 
step by step to a willingness for the most kind and most merciful 
treatment of those who have sinned so deeply against the welfare of 
our land, and the interests of humanity. Woe unto them ! Alas for us ! 

Great need have we to strive and pray, that this w rong of theirs 
does not fill us with vindictiveness and hate ; and for him who thus 



suddenly steps into the place where one so loved and so worthily 
honored stood, that Divine wisdom would be given him, and the 
mantle of his great predecessor fall amply around him. Nor let us 
cease to hope and to pray for the recovery of that wise and able 
Statesman, whose judicious counsels, whose able diplomacy, whose far- 
seeing sagacity have kept us from trouble with foreign powers, and 
made us even in the day of our weakness and our trial, to be feared 
and respected among all the nations. May God be pleased to spare 
our Secretary of State to us ! 

My friends, though the pressure of a great calamity rests upon our 
hearts, and we know not what counsels may now prevail, let us not be 
discouraged. As on all future issues of our coin there is to be stamped 
the words, " In Grod we trust," so let us grave them upon our hearts. 
Our destiny is still in the hands of the Ever Living, though all trusted 
mortals fall and die. Though our victory is turned into mourning, yet 
let us not forget that he who this day rose from the dead, has pronounced 
all mourners blessed, and promises them comfort. He lives forever, 
and His truth is alone the salvation of man and of the Nation. Let 
us accept it, heed it, seek its influence, walk in the path which it 
marks out. 

To be a Christian people, and a Christian Nation, is ever possible to 
us ; and now more than ever its importance presses on our hearts. 

The Kebellion against our Country is in its dying gasps 3 let us not 
fear that this terrible woe that is upon us can at all revive it. The 
policy of him who has gone, will, let us trust, be so far commended to 
the judgment of his successor, that the difficulties of final adjustment 
will not be insurmountable, but that out of them we shall come forth 
united, free, and forever secure ! 

And for him who has gone ; for the loved ones of his home who are 
bowed in anguish ; for all whose tears flow that his earthly career is 
closed, how abundant the comforts beaming in the rays of the Sun of 
this Resurrection Morn ! Our beloved President still lives in the sight 
and in the enjoyment of his God. Lost to our sight, he yet dwells among 
the blest. Leaving his mangled and weary body, his spirit soared aloft, 
greeted by all the heavenly host, with the glad salutation, " Well done, 
good and faithful servant, enter into thy eternal rest ! " 



AXD THEV Bl'RIED lIlM, AND ALL ISUAEL MoURNED KOU HiM. — Ist. KillgS. 

xiv., 18. 

Soiuethiug less than lit'ty years agu, a young lad, strong, muscular, 
and somewhat overgrown, spent his days, axe in liaud, in laborious 
work among the thick standing trees of what is now a densely popu- 
lated State; and industriously gave the leisure of his nights to the 
acquisition of whatever knowledge might be gained from the few books 
he was so fortunate as to borrow from the neighboring settlers. Born 
in a State where honest toil was considered a degradation, whose 
laborers were but chattels, purposely kept in ignorance, his parents 
had souglit under circumstances of poverty and deprivation, a spot 
more congenial Avith efforts for manly independence ; and the son 
prizing his opportunities, but shrinking from ni> duties, was tlieir 
great helper in toil, while he also stored liis heart with noble principles, 
and his mind with every attainment possible to one in his circum- 
stances. How untoward were his surroundings, we, who dwell here at 
ease in a metropolis surrounded by conveniences and comforts which 
are the result of nearly two centuries of labor an<l intelligence, where 
the advantages of education are une([ualed. and where the richest fruits 
of civilization meet us on every hand, can realize only in a very imper- 
fect manner. But we know that on many pages of our history there 
are glorious records of the achievements of some of our best and 
mightiest, whose early home and whose educational privileges were 
such as I have just intimated. 

In a few years, this lad, having reached the years of manhood, 
.[ualifies himself by the study and use of rude materials for a change 
in the sphere of his labor, and traverses the great river of the West ; 
then for a while becomes ii trafficker in a small country store ; then 
for a few months experiences the adventures incident to soldier-life ; 
then, by the use of borrowed books, prepares himself for the legal 
profession, and soon after enters upon a brilliant and popular career 
as a pleader. Politics engage his attention, and as a zealous partizan 
of Henry Clay, he seeks his promotion to the highest position in the 
gift of a free people. Soon he enters more active life as a legislator ; 
and ere long he stands in the hall of the National Congress to give his 
voice and his vote against the threatening flood of Slavery. As this 



10 

great evil becomes more insolent in its demands, and more open in the 
manifestation of its brutal spirit, he steps forth into the arena of popu- 
lar debate, and taking as his antagonist the Giant of the West, goes 
with him before the people, to the discussion of the great questions of 
that hour. 

From this time he is the favorite of thousands, and yet, the Countr}', 
as a whole, knows but little of him. A convention assembles to put 
forth a candidate for the Presidency, and here, men who knew his 
worth, and appreciated his strength, present his name, and he is pro- 
nounced their choice. As the intelligence spreads among the people, 
thousands confess that the name is that of a stranger. Many express 
fear, doubt, distrust, and yet but few are surprised, for the system so 
viciously prevalent in all parties, of packed conventions, and the schemes 
of party hacks and managers, had long before shown that, no one from 
among the men most widely known, nor of greatest national I'eputation, 
would be likely to be selected as Presidential candidate. He was ac- 
cepted as the representative of a principle, and by the exertions of a 
young and vigorous party, aided in no small measure by the divisions 
among his political opponents, he was elected President of the United 
States. And then, as the events of most fearful significance gathered 
thick and in awful threatening over the land, how eager was the curi- 
osity, how intense the anxiety to know more concerning the man to 
whom we had committed our destiny. During the fearful months 
intervening between his election and his inauguration ; while treason 
was hatching its villainous plots in our National Capitol ; our navy 
being dispersed to the four quartei's of the globe ; our arms, arsenals 
and forts put out of our hands; our treasury emptied, and he who was 
then in authority either could not or would not lift either hand or 
voice against it, how ardently we desired that the President elect 
would take us into his confidence and tell us what plan he Avas devising, 
what policy he proposed. His silence made us impatient, and pro- 
voked complaint. That he had energy, his elevation from such great 
obscurity gave full assurance ; but how many doubted whether the 
narrow sphere in which his life had been mostly passed had given 
him opportunity for familiarity with the great principles and policies 
of statesmanship requisite for the perils which were gathering. That 
his honesty was so conspicuous as to have passed into a proverb, was 
most gratifying, but who could feel assured that his training was such 
as to guarantee his ability to grapple with the sharpest difficulties that 
had ever beset the Nation. How eagerly, and yet with what trembling, 



11 

we looked forward to the day when he should take the reins of Gov- 
ernment out of the weak hands in which they were then lying. 

The time came for him to journey towards Washington. His 
beloved townsmen gathered at the railway station to bid him God- 
speed. Turning towards them, when he had stepped on the platform, 
he said : •' My friends, no one not in my position can appreciate the 
sadness I feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. 
Here I have lived for more than a quarter of a century. Here my 
children were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know not 
how soon I shall see you again. A duty devolves upon me which is 
perhaps greater than that which has devolved upon any other man since 
the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded except for 
the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I 
feel that I cannot succeed without the same Divine aid which sustained 
him, and in the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for support; 
and I hope you, my friends, will all pray that I may receive that 
Divine assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which 
success is certain. Again, I bid you all an affectionate farewell !" 

These solemn and loving words were conveyed on the lightning 
wings to every town and hamlet. The people felt that a good man 
was indeed their leader ; and in enthusiastic crowds they thronged his 
way, content even with a word, and invoking the blessing of God 
upon him. Everywhere, as opportunity offered, he was greeted with 
speeches of welcome, each orator exhausting his ingenuity to impress 
upon him the intense desire of the people to learn his policy. He saw, 
but could not gratify; nor did he evade. Plainly and repeatedly he 
said : " I deem that it is just to the Country, to myself, to you. that I 
should see everything, hear everything, and have every light that can 
possibly be brought within my reach to aid me before I shall speak 
officially, in order that when I do speak, I may have the best possible 
means of taking correct and true grounds. For this reason I do not 
now announce anything in the way of policy for the new Administration. 
When the time comes, according to the custom of the Government, I 
shall speak, and speak as well as I am able, for the good of the present 
and of the future of this Country— for the good of the North and of 
the South — for the good of one and of the other, and of all sections 
of it." 

Arrived in this city, the intense desire of the people was again com- 
municated to him; and standing in Independence Hall, he spoke the 
deep feelings of his heart. It is not unfitting, I trust, certainly not 



12 

to us to whom that dear Shrine of Liberty is so easy of access, and 
especially in view of the melancholy fact that all that is mortal of him 
will soon be borne there, that I now repeat his words : '• Mr. Cuyler." 
said he, " I am filled with deep emotion in finding myself standing here, 
in this place, where were collected the wisdom, the patriotism, the 
devotion to principle, from Avhich sprang the institutions under which 
we live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the 
task of restoring peace to the present distracted condition of the 
Country. I can say, in return, sir, that all the political sentiments I 
entertain, have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, 
from the sentiments which originated in and were given to the world 
from this Hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not 
spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. 
1 have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the 
men who assembled here, and framed and adopted that Peclaration of 
Independence. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the 
officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that independence. I 
have often inquired of myself M'hat great prin ciple or idea it was that kept 
this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the 
separation of the colonies from the mother-land, but that sentiment in 
the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the 
people of this Country, but, I hope, to the world for all future time. 
It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be 
lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is a sentiment embodied in 
the Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, can this country 
be saved upon this basis ? If it can, I will consider myself one of the 
happiest men in the world if I can help to save it. If it cannot be 
saved upon that principle, it Avill be truly awful. But if this Country 
cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say. 
I would rather be assassinated on the spot than surrender it. Now, in 
my view of the present aspect of affairs, there need be no bloodshed or 
war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a cause. 
I may say, in advance, that there will be no bloodshed unless it be 
forced upon the Grovernment, and then it will be compelled to act in 
self-defence. My friends, this is wholly an unexpected speech, and I 
did not expect to be called upon to say a word when I came here. \ 
supposed it was merely to do sijmething towards raising the flag. I 
may, therefore, have said something indiscreet. I have said nothing 
but what I am willing to live by, and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty 
God, to die by.'' 



13 

Inaugurated as Chief Magistrate of the Nation, the President spoke 
in his address the words which wakened hope and confidence. Kind 
and conciliatory to the erring, and assuring them that the door was 
wide open for their return ; that whatever grievances there were might 
easily be adjusted under the Constitution, and that the laws under that 
Constitution — mainly, "on the sensitive point, the laws of their own 
framing" — would be faithfully executed by him, he yet firmly and in 
unmistakable tones declared that the Union was perpetual, and that 
the Constitution and the laws should be enforced at every cost. How 
kindly and yet how faithfully he concluded : '-In your hands, my 
dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and nut in mine, is the momentous 
issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have 
no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath 
registered in Heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have 
the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it. I am loth 
to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. 
Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of 
affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle- 
field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over 
this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again 
touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 

But the pleading voice availed not. Unprincipled men had deter- 
mined that the Union should be destroyed, and they boldly went to 
their murderous work. Since then they have furrowed the land with 
war, shed the best blood of the Nation, carried desolation to every part 
of our once happy possessions, doing their awful work with infernal 
cruelty, ruining themselves, and often well nigh destroying the nation- 
ality of our Country. Meantime we grew to know^ and knowing, to 
trust and love our ruler. Patient, cheerful, eve^- trusting in God? 
making no vain boasts, careful not to commit himself to any policy till 
he had seen all that could affect it on either side, and weighed its worth 
in the just balances of an impartial judgment, and having once adopted, 
never deviating from it, he, while seeming to follow the popular will, 
ever led it, and the wisdom of his leading grew more and more apparent 
as the time of the expiration of his term of office drew near. His 
record was before the world, and millions of his countrymen endorsed 
it in the most emphatic manner possible, replacing him, with an 
enthusiasm unparalleled in our history, in the Presidential chair, in 
the brief time that has elapsed since then, what glorious results have 
been achieved. The stronghold of the Rebellion captured, the grand 



14 

army of the insurgents dissolved, and so glorious the prospect of speedy 
peace, that the word goes forth that no more are to be called from their 
homes to the field of battle. 

And he who had waited so long and so patiently for this day, upon 
whose mind and heart a great burden had lain these four long and 
anxious years; he, who, as Commander-in-Chief of the forces that had 
beaten down the Rebellion, possessed power never known before in this 
land ; how did he bear himself in this great prosperity ? As reverently 
as when leaving his Western home, he besought others to assist him in 
seeking the Divine Blessing ; as unselfishly as when forgetful of self 
he declared in our midst his willingness to die, if needs be, in defence 
of the great principle which underlies our Declaration of Independence ; 
as honestly and as convincingly in his few brief words on reconstruction, 
as he had set forth at the first his determination to '' preserve, protect 
and defend " the Constitution and the Laws ; as kindly and as magnani- 
mously as at the first he had assured the dissatisfied, that the way was 
open for their return. 

How universal was the feeling that he was the one wise man of the 
laud to conciliate, restore and make anew. If we had misgivings, it 
was not concerning his intellectual nor his executive ability, but that 
his heart was too warm, too generous, his offers too magnanimous to those 
who had sinned so deeply against our common humanity. But even 
this, as we turned to God for guidance, and looked towards the one 
and only infallible example, Jesus Christ, our Saviour, commended 
itself to us as manifesting, not the President's weakness, but in reality 
his strength, and that which alone can make us all strong, the unmistak- 
able assurance that he lived near to God, and was a true disciple of 
him who prayed for the forgiveness of his enemies. As this feeling 
was sinking into our hearts, and we were giving attention to the voice 
of love and mercy, which pleads so tenderly in the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ, and were feeling our hate dissolve and our vindictiveness vanish 
away, and were hastening our preparations for a rejoicing which 
should eclipse all former displays of our delight, what awful tidings 
froze our hearts with horror, and from the highest joy, cast us into 
the deepest gloom I The President, whom all had so much cause to 
love, and most of all towards whom his enemies should have turned 
with emotions of the deepest gratitude ; who should have been safe 
from violence anywhere and at all times, was murderously assaulted 
at the least expected time and place, and the assassin who crushed the 
brain that was only engaged in forming plans. of peace and good-will, 



15 

and stopped the beating of a heart that overflowed with human kind- 
ness, betrayed an ignorance, and a depravity, how deplorable, by 
applying to this, the gentlest and the best of men, the hateful name of 
tyrant. Alas I Alas! How far removed from this was Abraham 
Lincoln ! True it is, indeed, that we canuot now so estimate his char- 
acteristics as to do justice to him by any analysis that we can offer; 
but surely the bowing down of this Nation in a grief such as no 
private sorrow brings to any circle, however narrow ; the manifestation 
of universal mourning, not alone, nor in any conceivable measure, by 
the weeds which float in every breeze, and tinge all our homes and 
churches with gloom, but by that deeper sympathy which rests with 
such oppressive sadness on every heart, and forces the tears from every 
eye, testifies that the name first given in derision is now the one which 
best and alone fully expresses his relationship to us, — he was our 
worthy father ; and if ever the voice of the people echoes the Divine 
mandate, the universal offering of our hearts and lips this day, is the 
voice of God. 

We do not need, though we deeply feel how touchingly appropriate 
it is, the great poet's command : 

'• Bear lieiice his bodj', 
Ami mourn you for him. Let him be regarded 
As the noblest coi-psc that ever herald 
Did follow to bis urn." 

For with a spontaneousness the American people never disclosed 
before, we bow our heads in sorrow in this hour of his funeral. Death 
has, we know, been in our high places before, and in sadness we now 
recall the memory of our honored dead ; but we do not disparage them, 
nor do we unduly magnify the greatness of this affliction, when we 
place it first and most prominent among the sorrows of our land. We 
shall never perhaps allow that any other than Washington can be '"f^rst 
ever in our hearts," nor can we believe that any light grief roll/ over 
the hearts of our fathers when they received the tidings of his decease. 
I5ut for such an event they were measurably prepared. He had pass^ed 
on to that time of life when age Ijreaks down the strength, and gives 
assurance that death is not far distant. Long in honored service, he 
ha 1 retired from its burdens and cares, and in the quiet of private life 
was waiting "the summons to the tomb." It was sad to lose him, yet 
how natural, and so how resignedly borne, that he should go. Webster 
.-lud Clay, in our own time, received national honors at their burial ; 
but their departure had also been expected, and though they were 



16 

respected and beloved by many, it cannot in truth be said that the 
mourning for them was general. 

Death has also been once and again at the Capitol. Harrison and 
Taylor died while in the high office of President. They were worthy 
men, and the nation bowed down heavily at their death ; but no great 
national trouble had bound either of them with peculiar interest to the 
common heart. Diseases also gave warning of their dissolution, and 
for the tidings of their departure we were not unprepared. 

But the death which has now brought thousands to the ^Vhite House, 
and is filling all the churches with sincere and deeply afflicted mourners, 
has its special significance, not alone in its suddenness and the appalling 
circumstances of crime connected with it, but chiefly in the fict, that he 
who has fallen, had by the peculiarly trying circumstances of the times, 
been more constantly before the people than any of his predecessors, 
( Washington alone excepted ) had been ; that his measures had more 
directly and more immediately interested them ; that under his judicious 
lead great changes had been wrought in opinion on the great questions 
I if American politics ; great changes in the organic law of many of the 
-■^tates, as well as in the National Constitution ; and that he had shown 
himself worthy of trust as the friend, not of classes and of parties, but 
of the great American People ; and that he was successfully and 
speedily leading the Nation out of its great troubles, forever redeemed 
from the one great antagonism of liberty, which had been the fruitful 
source of all our political woes. The people knew him as they had 
never known another. They felt the beatings of his manly heart, and 
their own pulses moved in unison with his. His voice was familiar to 
them ; his words ever accepted as the words of honest truth ; his call 
to duty and to danger was gladly obeyed ; his cheerful trust had cap- 
tivated and toned their spirits, and a never-betrayed cause or confidence 
had led to implicit trust in all his words and acts. 

^ ■• Among innumerable false, unmoved, 

Unshaken, unseduceil, unterrifled, 
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal ; 
Nor number, nor example \vith him wrought 
To swerve from truth or change his constant mind, 
Though single.' 

" The elements 
iSo mixed in him, that nature might stand up 
And say to all the world — this is a Man." 
The President was loved and honored, and he is now so deeply 
mourned, because the trying years of his public service had revealed 



17 

those qualities which ever command universal love and respect. His 
streno-th lay in his being honest, true, right-minded, great-hearted. 
To these qualities human nature always pays its homage, and the 
universal conscience stamps them as the elements of human perfection. 
Frank, direct, humane, yet firm of purpose, he brought to the con- 
sideration of the greatest questions of difficulty ever presented to any 
ruler, a clear and unbiased judgment, a decision which slowly but 
fairly made, he never deviated from, and in which it is no exaggeration 
to say, the Country, with greater unanimity than it ever evinced on 
any other national topics, gladly and gratefully coincides, and the 
world will forever honor and admire. He never deceived, nor did he 
attempt deception ; silent, when he could not speak with directness, 
yet never evading the demands for thought and for utterance, his words 
were always direct and eminently comprehensive. Whatever the 
occasion of public display, though Statesmen of unrivaled power, and 
mighty victors from the field of strife, and orators of matchless 
eloquence thronged around him. 

" He above the rest. 
In shape and gesture proudly eminent. 
Stood like a tower." 

Some of the grandest flights of oratory the world has ever witnessed, 
have been manifest on the great occasions which called men together 
durinsr our oreat war, and noblest sentiments have 

" Flowed from lips wet with Castiflian dew : " 

but none of them have so taken the popular heart as the homely phrases 
of Abraham Lincoln, and not one of these would the common people 
now exchange for the most classic oration that has been made. Ever 
appealing to the judgment of mankind, the responsive approval has 
always followed, though sometimes tardily. But he could afford to 
wait even for the slowest assent, for he had studied, not the tricks of 
scheming policy, not the deceptive forms of high-sounding words, but 
conscience, duty, and the eternal right. And this characterized his 
great public documents as well as his brief speeches to the crowds. 
That great Proclamation of January 1st, 1863, in which he " avers and 
declares that all persons held as slaves within designated States and 
parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free," he concludes in 
this solemn manner : " Upon this act I invoke the considerate judgment 
of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God." Clearly the 
favor of God has been manifest, and no more approving page will be 



18 

wi'itten in the history of the world than that which records this just 
and solemn act. For this, if he had never done more, the name of 
Abraham Lincoln would shine with glorious immortality I Yet once 
again he spake, for men were wavering and despondent; timid. fear 
inspired a momentary hope in some that the edict might be revoked ; 
others, noting the vacillation of politicians, their seeming willingness 
to sacrifice everything for the immediate present, were doubting if even 
the honest ruler would stand fast; but biding his own time he spoke 
out at last in his message to Congress, " the promise having been made, 
it must be kept." For this, and for his steadfast integrity to it, what 
Avas long ago said of Wilberforce, now applies with intenser emphasis 
to President Lincoln : "' He ascended to the throne of God with a 
million of broken shackles in his hands as the evidence of a life well 
spent ! " And now, from henceforth, forever, while his memory will 
be embalmed in all hearts, one race of men rising from the degradation, 
ignorance and crimes of their former servile condition, shall feel their 
manhood enobled, and their position glorious, as they remember this 
one President — their life-long friend — the martyr to their liberty. 
And as the Moslem to Mecca; as the Hebrew to Mt. Sion; as the Chris- 
tian to Gethsemane,so shall the black man turn to the grave of Abraham 
Lincoln, and say with deep emotion, -' There lie the ashes of our Moses, 
of our good Father Abraham, our Emancipator I " and shall tell to their 
children, as the badges which they this day wear tell to all observers, 
'•Abraham Lincoln, the black man's friend, was murdered by the black 
man's enemy." 

Nor they alone shall shrine him in their hearts. Once we were 
content to have him named '-the man of our party;" once we rejoiced 
that he was hailed as '-the man of the Nation," but now he is the man 
universally beloved. Death has cut the tie which bound him to a 
political sect, or to a single nation, and in its place has forged an 
adamantine chain that links his memory with our common humanity. 

''Ilia name 
I.s Freedom's now, and Fame's, — 
One of the few, the immortal names 
That were not born to die." 

His memory is safe. No human events now can affect it, other than 
to add to its already unrivaled lustre. The great qualities, the private 
virtues, the noble and magnanimous bearing, the loving heart, — all 
that is precious, has received the seal of death. 



19 

" The love where death has set his seal, 
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal, 
Nor falsehood disavow." 

We may picture him, and we shall for the admiration of the world, 
as that 

"Divinely gifted man, 
Whose life in low estate began ; 
Who grasped the skirts of happy chance, 
Breasted the blows of circumstance, 
And made by force his merit known ; 
And lived to clutch the golden keys, 
To mould a mighty State's decrees, 
And shape the whisper of the throne ; 
And moving up from high to higher, 
Became, on fortune's crowning slope, 
The pillar of a people's hope, 
The centre of a world's desire !" 

Good man, dear, warm-hearted lover of the race, fiirewell ! For thee the 
pgean yields to the dirge, and the heart-ho//ors of the Nation prepare 
the solemn funeral pageant. For thee the requiem is sung with deepest 
pathos, its plaintive music rolling up from a thousand vocal temples — 
from countless throbbing hearts. Beneath it all thy unconcious dust 
sleeps well, hallowing and hallowed, while thy free spirit — the spirit of 
a "just man made perfect" — dwells forever with the Lord ! To Him 
we turn for comfort, and trusting in His mercy, believing in His gracious 
Providence, we joy that He gives us strength to say : 

" In the blank silence of the narrow tomb, 

The clay may rest which wrapped thy human birth, 

But all unconquered by that silent doom, 

The spirit of thy thought shall walk the earth 
In glory and in light !'' 



The Righteous shall be in everlasting Remembrance. — Psalm cxii., 6. 

It is too soon for any man to attempt a comprehensive analysis of" the 
life of him, to whose memory this day is set apart; and it is already 
too late to revive that intense sorrow which bowed us all to the dust 
during the days which elapsed between his death and his burial. 

In the one case, we must wait for the revelation of the secrets faith- 
fully deposited with those who stood near him, bearing the heat and 
the burden of our long and weary day of war ; and in the other, we 
already see the hand of God so clearly manifest in bringing good out 
of evil, that though we lose none of our horror for the assassination, 
we are comforted by the assurance that even the wrath of man praises 
God, and, banding the people together in more determined purpose 
for righteousness, is overruled for the greater attainment and security 
of the best things possible to the Nation and to the world. 

What, then, can we do this day, except to repeat the lesson of the 
text, and to seek a clear understanding and a faithful use of some 
of the duties and obligations which it imposes. The dead do not 
pass into oblivion. Each family has its memory of those whose 
goodness of heart, and integrity of purpose, endeared them to the 
narrow circle in which alone they moved ; each community of men 
treasures with heartfelt reverence those who, by true living, have been 
its benefactors and its guides; and every Nation, pointing back to its 
heroic ages, testifies that it has engraven in enduring characters, the 
names of those whose purity of purpose and sacrifice of all private 
aims entitled them to an exalted place among the benefactors of the 
race. And when families are broken up, communities dispersed, and 
Nations passed into oblivion. He with whom alone there is no change 
makes the memory of the eminently righteous the heritage of the 
world, to be a beacon and a teacher to all the ages. And when, one 
after another, the memories of the humbler ones of earth fade away in 
this changing and mortal state, they endure in Heaven more lasting 
than the stars, and have their record kept by Him who only hath im- 
mortality. " Our days are gone like a shadow, and we are withered 
like grass ; but Thou, O Lord, shalt endure forever, and Thy remem- 
brance throughout all generations." 



22 

From this consideration, we are led to feel not alone that we cannot 
overrate the power and the worth of moral influence, but, also, that it 
is the highest wisdom in us to imitate that which we so much admire, 
and which has the promise of endurance. It is this lesson which 
seems to me most pertinent to this hour, and obedience to which will 
help us to honor most worthily our departed President. It is, I am 
sure, the lesson which he desires us to accept and to heed. Standing 
over the remains of the thousands who had fallen on the soil of this 
State, President Lincoln thus spoke at Gettysburg : 

" We are met on a great battle-field of this war. We have come to 
dedicate a portion of this field as a final resting place for those who 
here gave their lives that the Nation might live. It is altogether 
fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we 
cannot dedicate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living 
and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power 
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember 
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is 
for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work 
which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is 
rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before 
us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that 
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion ; that we 
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ; that 
this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that 
government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not 
perish from the earth." 

There is energy in these words; there is majesty in the thought 
they express; and in some of the sentences there is most exquisite 
felicity of expression. Is there not now most singular appropriateness 
to himself, and to us who mourn for him r* Standing, as he did, like 
the Prophet of old, between the living and the dead, he held up the 
banner of right and honesty, charmed by the utterances of truth, 
captivated by the nobleness of true good-will to man, not for our ad- 
miration alone, but also for our imitation. To accept and heed this 
will be the noblest tribute we can ofi'er to his memory. It will manifest 
our highest appreciation of his life, and our most hearty assent to the 
principles for which we most admire him. It will be most in agree- 
ment with his last ofiicial utterances in that Inaugural Address, con- 
cerning which the British press has said: "It contains a grasp of 
principle, a dignity of manner, and a solemnity of purpose, which 



23 

would have beeu uiiwortliy of neither Hampdeu nor of Cromwell, while 
his gentleness and generosity of feeling towards his foes was almost 
greater than we should expect from either of them." 

How solemnly grand do the closing words of that Inaugural appear, 
now that he has passed away : 

'•Fondly do we hope, fervently do we i»ray, that this mighty scourge 
of war may soon pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until 
all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred years of unrequited 
toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash 
shall pe paid with another drawn with the sword, as was said three 
thousand years ago, so still it must be said, -the judgments of the 
Lord are true and righteous altogether.' 

"With malice toward none ; with charit}^ for all ; with firmness in 
the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish 
the work we are in ; to bind up the Nation's wounds ; to care for him 
who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans; 
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting pe ice among 
ourselves and with all nations." 

As he who uttered these words Avas righteous, because he was true 
■to the right which God gave him to see. let us as earnestly desire to 
know and do our duty. 

There are three things, which it seems to me eminently fitting, just 
and right, that we who love and h(^ior the illustrious dead, and who 
love the cause and the countiy for which he gave his life, should 
demand and secure : 

1. That justice shall have its course with those who instigated and 
led in this Rebellion. I speak not of revenge, certainly not of wild and 
furious retaliation, urging to mob force and to indiscriminate horrors 
which attend on personal hate. I clamor not for blood, nor would I 
countenance a resting i : torture. I would have no unlawful exac- 
tions, no mere vengence; but the justice which comes from judicial 
trial, the execution of the penalty which the law has provided for 
treason. This, justice, which in a perfect government is but another 
name for mercy, demands ; demands not for my gTatification, nor 
for yours, but for the public safety and for the good of the race. It 
can, indeed, do nothing for the past ; bring back none of our 
slaughtered thousands ; relieve nothing from the burden of taxation : 
make no restitution for the loss which pinches every one, but it can 
give us assurance for the future, check the mad and evil ambition 
which turns liberty into license, and save us from the repetition of the 



24 

fearful agonies through which we have now passed. For this, worth 
all that we can imagine, and beyond all price, let the guilty be tried, 
and according as the law pronounces on their deserts, let them be pun-* 
ished. And let us by our speech and through the influence of the 
public opinion which we may create, educate our people to just thought 
of the characters and deeds of those who have brought such ruin and 
distress upon us. Let us have done with the folly of praising Southern 
Statesmanship, and especially put from us the foolish thought, that as 
a peojile we shall yet be proud of the talents and skill, the daring and 
sacrifice, or even of the military genius and skill of the managers of 
the Eebellion. 

I regard him as a corrupter of our public morals, an enemy to our 
good, an unsafe and ruinous teacher of our young, who couples the names 
of Davis, Stephens, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, or any 
of their associates, with anything that can appeal to Amercan pride 
and honor. Let them have place with Haman of old, with Benedict 
Arnold of modern times, whose example offers nothing but warning, 
whose names are synonyms for all ignominy and baseness. Let their 
name, as -'the name of the wicked, rot." Justice to the memory of 
those noble ones, whose earthly existence was put out by their sins 
against the Nation and the race, demands that they go into the cata- 
logue of the enemies of man. 

2. Justice also demands of us the utter extinction of that great evil 
from which our troubles sprung. Rebellion, which killed its thousands 
upon the battle field, and starved and murdered its thousands in prisons; 
which was nourished by perjury, and culminated its horrors in assassi- 
nation, ever manifesting 

" Unconquerable will, 
And study of revenge, immortal hato, 
And courage never to submit nor jiold," 

had its birth in slavery — the vilest and the blackest slavery ever known 
on God's earth ; " founded," so >said Abraham Lincoln, twenty-eight 
years ago, "on both injustice and bad policy." None so blind now 
that they cannot see that this curse created the Rebellion ; none 
should fail to note the warning voice of Mr. Lincoln, as he said to the 
convention which put him in nomination for the United States Senate : 
" This government cannot endure permanently half slave and half 
free. It will become all the one thing, or all the other." 

And now. if justice demands the crushing out of the Rebellion, the 
punishment of its leaders, and the entire submission to the law, of all 



25 

who have in any way aided and abetted it. with what equal force does 
it also demand that the accursed root from which this deadly tree 
grew, shall be plucked up and utterly destroyed. Let it alone and you 
cannot prevent its growth. As in time passed it will control trade, 
commerce, offices, presses, pulpits, politics, and rule them all in the 
interests of unrighteousness, and whatever we may now do to the 
wicked wretches which it has created, it cannot fail, soon or late, to 
give birth to a kindred brood whose career will be run on a plane of 
equally ati'ocious depravity. Let the accursed thing die ! No com- 
promise, no covenant, no concession or conciliation should save it. 
President Johnson, all honor to him ! treats it in his Proclamation as 
a thing utterly annihilated in the States which have been in rebellion. 
Let us so second his effiirts, that it may soon be dead everywhere. 
We are not guiltless in regard to its existance or its spread, and ou 
us rests many of the consequences of its growth, to us much respon- 
sibility must attach for the fruits which it has borne. We have need 
to repent of our sins in regard to it; and while our condemnation of 
others must in a great measure react and fall back on ourselves, our 
way out of the trouble lies only in our doing the works of righteous- 
ness, confessing our folly and sin, and bringing forth " the fruits of 
repentance." 

3. And this leads me to a brief mention, in conclusion, of the third 
great demand of justice upon us, which is, that we bring the State and 
the Nation to a recognition and maintenance of the equality of all men 
before the law. Slavery has not only ruled us in making us unjust 
towards those who were held in bondage, but it has filled us with vile 
and bitter prejudices against all whom it pleased God to create with a 
different complexion from ourselves. It has -^f, taught to regard them as 
so far our inferiors, that on account of their color we have shut them 
out from the right of suffrage, driven them from our institutions of 
learning, expelled them from our public conveyances. In all this we 
have been and we continue to be the perpetrators of outrai^e and 
wrong. We have been governed not by reason, but by blind and 
stupid prejudice. We have forgotten all the dictates of Christianity, 
all the lessons of history, and given the most emphatic lie to our 
national boast of universal suffrage, and that " governments derive 
their just power from the consent of the governed." 

Now in rebuking this, I am not asking for sympathy for the negroes, 
nor intimating what charity and good will ought to lead us to do in 
their behalf; but I make an appeal to your moral sense, to what 



26 

rigliteousness demands, and to wliat we must do in order to be just. 
Let us look back and see what we sprung from, and what a despicable 
thing our prejudice against race is. Six hundred years ago our 
fathers, the blue-eyed and fair-haired Anglo-Saxons, who were 
trampled into the dust by their Norman conquerors, were regarded as 
of coarser clay, and far inferior to the haughty ones who trampled 
them down ; our ancestor, yours and mine, was regarded as so low and 
so mean, that he might be found in the highways of England laboring 
with a brass collar on his neck, and the name of his master marked 
upon it. That is where we came from ; and it ought to smite us to 
the dust, that the prejudice which the Xorman then had against the 
Saxon, we the children of slaves have dared to transfer to others. 

Our assertion of the inferiority of the races is all a lie, falsified by 
all history, condemned by all the inspired testimony of God. And the 
very moment we attempt to say that the negro, trampled upon forages, 
accursed, despised by the proud, made the slave of the cruel, and the 
victim of prejudice without reason, is naturally inferior to the men of 
all other nations who have their homes and their voice here, we place 
ourselves in a position where fact cannot be our basis, but where pre- 
judice alone can serve for our unwarranted assertion. As another has 
well asked, " Will you exchange the negro for the Esquimaux — for the 
Pacific Islander — for the South American tribes?" An unqualified 
negative will be our answer to this, and in our answer behold the 
reproach of our foolish prejudice. 

Now our wickedness lies in this, that boasting of universal suffrage 
and of universal right, we suffer mere prejudice to give the lie to our 
pretentious. The question of universal suffrage I do not debate here, 
neither its use nor its dangers. I merely state our national boast as it 
is made, our political practice which gives to the stupid German and 
the ignorant Irishman the right to a voice in determining our afftiirs. 
on condition of a short term of residence, and denies that right to 
those born on the soil, but whom it pleased God to give a different 
color from what he gave ourselves. In all this we are doing unrighteously. 
If we make other conditions of suffrage, very well ; but no future con- 
ditions can excuse our present inconsistencies. And yet, how the 
events of this war caution us to care in placing the right to a voice in 
the Government on an}' grounds other than that broad one — the rights 
of man as a man. No mere property qualification is safe, for how 
wealthy were the rebel leaders ; and for the same reason no high standard 
of intellectual attainment can be set up, for as a class they had all the 



27 

culture of the schools, while in manhood, devotion 'to right, loyalty, 
integrity, the poorest and the humblest poor have stood above them 
all ; and the accuuiulated power of those simple-minded, true-hearted, 
inflexibly loyal negroes, who have bared their breasts to the Southern 
fire and steel, have been mightier and worth more than the heaviest 
brain that plotted treason against the land. 

No tribute to liberty, no homage to the Stars and Stripes has been 
more impressive and magnanimous than that offered by the despised 
ones who owed the Nation nothing ; but who freely gave their all, that 
the traitors who owed the Nation everything might not succeed in its 
overthrow. To these men and to their children we must be just. 
They must all stand equal in the law. In intelligence, industry, and 
all outward attainment, they already compare favorably and are more 
than equal to the mass of our foreign voters. In loyalty they are unsur- 
passed by none who tread our soil. Righteousness requires that for 
them we establish justice and secure liberty. Let us meet the demand. 

In hints, rather than by labored argument, still less of exhaustive 
presentation, I have given you, my brethren, these thoughts. I trust 
they have not been inappropriate in the memorial service of Him who 
has taught us that it is by following the right, and thus completing 
the work which others have begun, rather than by words of eulogy 
and praise, that we shall honor the memory of those who have died 
for us. He was fliithful to his duty, obedient -'to the right as God 
gave him to see the right," and the work which he left unfinished, we, 
if we love the memory of the righteous, will carry forward to successful 
completion. Let, I beseech you, his memory prove an incentive to the 
love of truth, to cou sg cratioa of heart and life to righteousness, and 
to harmony of eSift with the demands of eternal justice ; then shall 
we see what he so much desired, the Nation firmly and permanently 
established by Mercy and Truth meeting together, and Righteousness 
and Peace embracinu' each other. 



TtBRARYoTcONGRESS 





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